I have a major gripe
Kudos by the way on creating a new and fresher mod for Silent Hunter III.
I applaude the efforts and results that led to GWX 3.0.
That having been said, I have a gripe about the game and in particular with GWX 3.0.
Now I am sure that some of you older wolves would poo poo what would be seen by others as some fresh cub's whining and crying because of the difficulty level of the simulation but hear me out.
No game, no matter how intense the graphics, no matter the time spent on making realistic scenery and dialogue, will stand up to this one simple point.
If the game takes more effort and time than necessary to win, then the game isnt worth the software that it is intregrated into (Anyone remember Ghosts'n Goblins?).
I have abstained from using the absolute 100% realisim mode when playing, and I like to keep it at least 33% realistic. 100% is just simply too much.
If that much realism was needed, the individual might as well travel back in time and experience the terrors and triumphs of u-boat service first hand.
However, even when setting aside the fact that some effort and patience must be practiced by the participant in this simulation (incorporating GWX 3.0) even at 33% realism or less the GWX 3.0 fails in my book to allow for some enjoyment in playing Silent Hunter III.
Consider this, I have sailed on 13 seperate patrols, from 1939 to 1940, from Kiel to St. Nazaire. Five patrols resulted in null contacts or sinkings, I sailed around for 33 simulated days on average, recieving only messages of convoys I could neither find (they never showed on the map when radio messages were received), or of lone wolf encounters that likewise never showed on a map. Very frustrating!
Thats all well and good so to speak if we are actually u-boat men, but this is a simulation, a game gentlemen! I did not purchase and download a game and a mode to pick my nose and wonder when the paint would crack on the ceiling!
And on the matter of radio messages, with all that skill and effort made to embellish and enrich the overall appearance of SH3 (again, what you all have achieved is spectacular in that respect) you would think to at least allow for some leeway in sendiing reports!
How about letting us give some details on what we encountered in the patrols and having the mod offer some suggestions other than the basic "search at your discretion" nonsense.
Do you think Admiral Doenitz would have tolerated such a lax manner of shifting uboats from one grid to the next? Heil No! (play on words was intended)
And on the four times I encountered convoy's, they were all during horrendous sea storms, and tossing waves that annoyingly had not affect on the destroyers in their chasing me down and turning me into fish food!
No matter the region, it was always the same storm!
The destroyers were really annoying. I know for a fact that it took time to improve anti-submarine warfare tactics and that such efforts were influential in the destruction of uboats but really? come on!
To have a four stacker tub loaned to the brits by the yanks on discount no less! zero me out in the middle of hurricane weather when I am not even moving and at a depth of 120 meters? The bastard zoomed in from 40 miles away and it was supposed to be protecting a convoy? At that range it would have been lucky to have even gotten that far without turning turtle!
Granted, it sounds as if I want realism in my favor and not in the favor of the enemy, but should there have not been at least SOME difficulty in getting bearings on my location?
A fun improvement to this game this does not make gentlemen!
On the matter of crew promotions and awards and qualifications, to borrow from the song "how many paths must a man walk on, before you can call him a man" (yes I know I don't have the quote correct!) but how many patrols does it take to get a crewmember his uboat clasp? In the career I had, I did 8 patrols before a single sailor got the clasp! What it is up with that?
Okay I am done with my griping for now, and I am sure my gripes are so full of holes and entire convoy of convoys could sail through undetected, but this point must be made: if you want this game and GWX 3.0 to be accessible to all, and that includes little whining cubs llike myself, than I beseech you all to not have this fine game and this otherwise excellent mod (GWX 3.0) go the way of "Ghosts'N Goblins".
Regards,
Konrad
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